Author name: Professor Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D.

Paul Knoepfler, Ph.D. is a Professor at UC Davis School of Medicine in Cell Biology and Human Anatomy. His lab does research on stem cells and cancer, especially from an epigenomic angle. He also has been working on policy and ethics matters for many years. The author of 3 books, he also has a popular TED talk on designer babies.

Centers for Respiratory Health is new incarnation of clinic Lung Health Institute

/ / 6 Comments
Centers for Respiratory Health, lung health institute

Many firms that generally fall into the category of unproven stem cell or cell therapy clinics have a way of reinventing themselves and I’ve seen this with one formerly named the Lung Institute that is now called Centers for Respiratory Health. First the Lung Institute became the Lung Health Institute. Now that firm has become […]

Centers for Respiratory Health is new incarnation of clinic Lung Health Institute Read More »

Weekly reads: Yale scientist suspended, WA AG sues clinic, new pubs

/ / 1 Comment
Dr. Tami Meraglia has been sued by the Washington State AG for selling unproven stem cells.

It’s very challenging to be an academic scientist even under normal circumstances so when a government starts going after researchers for things like supposed irregularities in funding disclosures, it can cause serious problems if not carefully overseen. We’ll start this week’s recommended reads with the feds monitoring such disclosures and even making referrals to the

Weekly reads: Yale scientist suspended, WA AG sues clinic, new pubs Read More »

FDA news: warning letter pattern, cancer moonshot, CAR-T & gene-editing guidance

/ / Leave a Comment
FDA

The FDA has been busy with the COVID pandemic but it has many other things on its plate as well including cell therapies. Today I’m sharing some recent agency news and brief perspectives on it. FDA focus on clinic-related umbilical cord cell drug makers The agency warned an Idaho company that produces and sells umbilical

FDA news: warning letter pattern, cancer moonshot, CAR-T & gene-editing guidance Read More »

Review of DVC Stem, a clinic marketing of unproven therapies

/ / 15 Comments
DVC Stem video featuring Lou Ferrigno

DVC Stem is an unproven clinic selling stem cells. One notable thing about them is that their website dominates large amounts of Google Search results related to stem cells. This likely drives many new customers to the clinic. The goal of today’s post is to fact check and review DVC Stem. I see reasons for

Review of DVC Stem, a clinic marketing of unproven therapies Read More »

Clinic StemGenex & doc face $3.6 million class action settlement

/ / Leave a Comment
Stemgenex

The site Top Class Actions reports that StemGenex, a former stem cell clinic in LaJolla, CA will have to pay out big in a settlement for a class-action lawsuit alleging fraud. Who gets what in StemGenex lawsuit settlement? In the piece, StemGenex, Lead Doctor to Pay $3.65M for Fraudulent Stem Cell Therapy Scheme, we learn that

Clinic StemGenex & doc face $3.6 million class action settlement Read More »

Biotech California Cultured aims to sell lab-grown chocolate

/ / 1 Comment
California Cultured lab-grown chocolate. Pic by Paul Knoepfler.

I’m fascinated by the idea of making food from cells grown in a lab and especially the newest idea of lab-grown chocolate. While lab-grown meat has gotten the most attention, (see my recent post on test-tube meat: Not Old MacDonald’s Farm: is the future lab-grown meat?) I’d say that the coolest application of making food from

Biotech California Cultured aims to sell lab-grown chocolate Read More »

Stem cells for MS & other weekly reads: CRISPR, COVID & a bat cave, Huntington’s

/ / 1 Comment
Symptoms_of_multiple_sclerosis.svg_

About 1 million people are living with multiple sclerosis in the U.S. alone with millions of other cases around the world so a huge effort has gone into trying to find new approaches to the disease including stem cells for MS. We’ll start our weekly recommended reads by talking about a new paper on MS

Stem cells for MS & other weekly reads: CRISPR, COVID & a bat cave, Huntington’s Read More »

Feds want $3M, prison for Liveyon founder in old fraud case

/ / Leave a Comment
John Kosolcharoen, Liveyon

Before starting the umbilical cord cell supplier and marketing firm Liveyon, John Kosolcharoen was involved in some alleged health care fraud. The feds brought a case against him related to prescription drugs. Older case coming to a head As Liveyon was having its misadventures in the stem cell clinic sphere, the status of that past

Feds want $3M, prison for Liveyon founder in old fraud case Read More »